Relatively small disk-like cylindrical shaped containers have been used for many purposes. Food, candy, and chewing gum have been packaged in such containers, which are generally formed from clear and opaque plastic. Chewing tobacco has also been packaged in such containers made of both plastic and metal. Other types of non-foodstuff consumer products have also been marketed in such containers. Clear plastic disk-like cylindrical containers have been made available to users in an empty condition, to allow the users to fill them with different types of relatively small objects that the user wishes to segregate and organize for convenience and specific-use purposes. For example, screws, nuts and bolts of particular sizes are segregated into separate containers according to the size and other distinguishing characteristics of the items. Small items used in hobbies, such as photograph holder corners, lettering, glitters, and powders used in scrap book construction, may be placed into separate containers according to the type and size of the item. Buttons, fasteners, and needles used in sewing may also be separately contained in individual containers. Flies and lures for fishing, as well as many other relatively small sporting goods items, may be kept separately in such containers. In general, such disk-like cylindrical containers may be used to separate a wide variety of relatively small items.
Although the disk-like cylindrical containers are useful for segregating various items, a further difficulty arises in organizing the containers in such a way that the individual containers may be readily recognized and accessed. From the standpoint of dispensing or selling products, it is desirable to present the consumer with all of the available choices of different types of products that are marketed in such containers, so that the user can conveniently select the desired product. While the products can be stacked on top of one another, such stacks and other orientations do not facilitate a continuous orderly display of the products. Such stacks usually become disarrayed or scattered as a result of consumers sorting through the stacks to locate the desired item.
One typical type of point of purchase display used with disk-like cylindrical containers is a tube rack, which is a tube shaped structure which confines the cylindrical containers within its interior, in a stacked relationship. The containers are loaded into the top of the tube. Only the bottom container within the tube can be removed, because the only access to the tube is through a removal opening located at one end of the tube. The containers move downward in the tube rack toward the removal opening from the force of gravity as the bottom containers in the tube are removed. The tube rack may be made of clear plastic to reveal the nature of each type of container. If a consumer desires a container located in the middle of the stack, the containers must be removed one at a time from the bottom of the stack in the tube rack until the desired container is finally reached. Those containers removed to obtain access to the desired container should be replaced into the tube rack, but consumers frequently do not do so. If the containers are replaced, the replacement is frequently haphazard and in such a way that the containers could jam together within the center of the tube rack and prevent the further downward movement of the containers to the removal opening.
Other types of point of purchase dispensers for disk-like cylindrical containers are made of wire and shaped as a vertically oriented rectangular rack. These rectangular wire racks function in a manner similar to tube racks, in that the containers are stacked within the interior of the wire rack, are removed from a bottom access opening in the wire rack and move downward from the force of gravity. The openings between the individual wires of the wire rack permit the user to see the individual containers in the wire rack. Unlike a tube rack, the openings between the wires permit manipulation of the containers within the center of the stack to remedy jam problems caused by disorientation of the containers.
Another type of point of purchase dispenser which is similar to both a rectangular wire rack and a tube rack is made of heavy paper or cardboard material. Such heavy paper or cardboard material racks are configured as a rectangular box structure having a bottom access opening, similar to the configuration of a rectangular rack. Because of the opaque heavy paper or cardboard, the contents of the stack are not visible to the consumer. Only the last or bottom one of the containers is visible through at the access opening.
A further type of dispenser for disk-like cylindrical containers is a track or shoot-like structure in which the containers are confined in a serial fashion. Instead of a vertical stack of containers, the track locates the containers in a side-by-side, generally horizontal-oriented line. The track is at a slight vertical declining slope, so that gravity moves the containers downward in a line toward a bottom dispensing opening. Removing the bottom container in the line causes the other containers in the track to move downward within the track. However, like the tube, wire and rectangular box racks, the track structure still requires the cylindrical containers to be dispensed or moved one at a time in a serial fashion until the desired container is reached.
The track structure is frequently inefficient from a space utilization standpoint, because a relatively large horizontal surface area is required to support the track. Furthermore, if separate tracks are vertically stacked with respect to one another, viewing the individual containers along the length of each track is impossible. To obtain better space utilization, the tracks are sometimes formed in curved configurations, but those curved configurations are still not space-efficient.
In those circumstances where there are only a few different products displayed for sale, a separate track, tube rack, wire rack or rectangular box rack may be used for each different product. However, this requires a number of different dispensers, and a relatively large amount of space is consumed by those dispensers.
Cylindrical shaped dispensers have also been devised to present the individual cylindrical containers in a side-by-side manner. An access slot is formed in the side of the cylindrical shaped dispenser by which to remove a selected one of the containers from the row. The access slot has a width which extends circumferentially around the cylindrical shaped dispenser for less than 180 degrees. The remaining portion of the cylindrical dispenser occupies more than 180 degrees of contact with the cylindrical container, and thereby holds the cylindrical container within the dispenser. To remove the cylindrical container, the container must be grasped and pulled out of the dispenser. In doing so, the part of the cylindrical dispenser which contacts more than 180 degrees of the cylindrical container must be bent or deflected outward. The bending frequently has the unintended effect of releasing the non-selected containers which are adjacent to the selected container. To prevent the unintended removal of non-selected containers, the consumer is required to hold in the adjacent containers with one hand while attempting to remove the selected container with the other hand. Alternatively, a consumer will simply allow the non-selected containers to come out of the dispenser and then not replace the non-selected containers.
An alternative form of a cylindrical dispenser requires the selected container to be twisted sideways within the cylindrical dispenser until its parallel sidewalls are parallel to the axis of the cylindrical dispenser. Oriented in this manner, the cylindrical container can be removed through the access slot. However, to provide the necessary space for the cylindrical container to be twisted, the space within the cylindrical dispenser cannot be fully occupied by the containers. Consequentially, the cylindrical dispenser cannot be fully loaded or occupied with the cylindrical containers. Moreover, if the cylindrical dispenser is not fully loaded with the containers, those containers within the dispenser have the opportunity to twist and fall sideways which can cause disorientation and jams of the containers within the dispenser. Such random movement also creates a possibility for the containers to fall from the dispenser.
The organizational issues associated with point of purchase dispensers are similar to issues arising from the personal use of the disk-like cylindrical containers. For purposes of convenience, the user, like the consumer, needs to view all of the containers in order to select the desired one without disrupting the organization of the non-selected containers. However, in personal use circumstances, it is usually necessary to present and organize a large number of containers which hold different items, in contrast to a point of purchase situation where there may be a lesser number of items but more duplicates of the same item. Thus, from the personal use standpoint, the containers should be collected, presented and organized to allow the user to quickly locate and release the desired container from among a relatively large number of such containers.